The Trendsetters
by Ember Nickel
Summary: My name is Marco. Stop me if you've heard this one. (For Marcopera 2014)


For Marcopera 2014. Could go in the same continuity of some of my other works, not really sure. This has been my crackship of choice for a while now, though.

* * *

My name is Marco.

If you've heard it once, you've heard it a dozen times. If you're from whatever far-flung corner of the galaxy _hasn't_ heard about my friends and me...well, I guess that's a story for another time. I won't judge you. The galaxy's a big place.

But if you're from Earth, you probably know a lot about me. And the others. And it's not enough that you've heard my name; there are a whole lot of other Marcos, now. The babies.

I should be proud of this. And I am, sort of. But, you know, there are only so many babies' hands you can shake before it gets boring. There are a lot of perks to being a planetary hero, but the novelty has worn off on me.

"I mean," I said, "it's not like I was ever planning to name my babies Marco, Jr. Before any of this happened."

"Before any of this happened, you were, what, a freshman in high school? Did you really expect anybody would want your kids?"

"Ouch." I swat at her playfully, but not too much even for a joking swipe. I mean, she's pregnant.

"Hey," she smiled. "We don't have to do names right now."

"I thought this was what I have agents for." I closed the window, pocketing my phone.

"We can't do this ourselves?"

"We can," I said. It wasn't much of an answer.

I didn't want her to start citing some cliches about how it was okay to be scared. Little Marco Jr., or whatever, wasn't even born yet, and we had how many years of changing diapers and whatever hurdles came next? I'd dealt with worse than whatever he or she could pose. Much worse But living with fear doesn't always make the easy challenges easy to deal with-sometimes it just teaches you to well up with fear at every corner.

"So," I offered. "What do you want for dinner?"

She raised her eyebrows, shifting position on the couch and continuing to scroll on her own phone. "Was that a serious question?"

"I like to live dangerously."

I shook my head. "Why did I marry you?"

"You needed a trophy wife. Who would give your kids contrived, 'original' names."

And all I could do was laugh. I'd dated plenty of similar women, to be fair; most younger than me, most with the same awkwardness, verging on hero-worship, that I frankly didn't mind for the first few dates and grew tired of after it didn't wear off. I'd like to say she'd been different, that it had been some deep layer about her personality that impressed me right away. It wasn't. She still swerved between nervous giggles and a cloyingly-sincere, "thank you for saving the world and all" attitude, and I didn't think anything of it. I liked having people look up to me (figuratively; it usually wasn't literally).

Then by the time we realized we had a deeper connection, well, one thing had led to another. Which brought us to where we were; eyes glazing over at the lists of baby names, neither ready to admit we were up to the task at hand.

"The kid's going to be famous anyway," she pointed out. "We can't help it."

"Is that supposed to make me feel better?"

"Millions of people are going to think it's a stupid choice, no matter what we go with."

"Millions of people tended not to criticize my choices, when we didn't ask their advice. Before..." I picked up my phone again, pretending to fumble with the keys, to reopen the lists I had.

She climbed up slowly, shaking herself free from the couch, and paced across the room-past the big screens, the art I didn't really appreciate, the trappings of style-to kiss me. I kissed her back, closing my eyes. Our baby might not be able to escape the spotlight, but I hoped she or he might at least be able to grow up in our love. And, if nothing else, in a world at peace.

Once she'd pulled away, taking her seat on the couch again, she flipped her phone in the air a couple times, catching it on the fly. It was the kind of gesture she'd given me grief for, when we'd first met-wasteful, if she let it drop. Even that far pregnant, however, she was still able to snag it and set it aside. "But the other celebrities-less cool than _you_, I mean-they give their kids weird names, because they're just owning up to it. No escape."

"The kid might not want to be some personal brand or whatever." She was right, of course-one unintended side effect of the opening of Earth to the galaxy had been the dizzying array of cosmopolitan names available to the bigwigs of on our little planet. Movie stars and singers paraded their little "Shorm"s and "Seer"s. "Isthill"s were somewhere in between; not quite enough of a personal name to be the next big thing, not quite exotic enough to make a statement. "And, what. The rest of the world, naming their kids 'Marco'?"

"They like the idea of being famous, I guess?"

"They can keep it."

"Heroic, then."

Heroic, me. The next generation couldn't all be baby Jakes or Rachels, true. But was it worth it? What had I done, to deserve both the fame of the crowds and the unexpected satisfaction of my-our-personal life?

I glanced up at her again, and her quiet expression reminded me that we'd been through a lot, together and separately. Maybe it was time we acknowledged it. "So what does that make you?"

"Me?"

"There are already babies named after you. Little kids, I guess, even before we got together and you were famous enough to get named after."

She squinted, and not in the glare of the phone. "Then they weren't named after me, then."

"Oh, if you're going to be all logical about it."

"They're trendsetters!"

"Well, I think you set the trend."

"It wasn't my choice," she trailed off. Then checked herself. It hadn't been, at the time. Nor were the nicknames, the more sensible names in between. But to decide she could take pride in her own name after all, to set it next to mine-no matter what came next, for our child and for all of us-that choice had been free, had been Madra's alone.


End file.
